October has been busy. I actually got a job. I started Monday, October 5th. I got to the point where I could not sit at home anymore. I was going crazy! I never in my life thought that I would want to work. I could not wait to be done with my job back home - looking forward to being a housewife. But I am used to my life being insane, and there is only so much cleaning, and cooking and chasing the dog around the house you can do! :) So the job hunt started. I went all around Lawton putting my resume out and filled out applications to - no lie - about 25 places. I heard back from ONE! I went for the interview, loved the lady and was really happy about it. I work in the mall here in Lawton at a kiosk. Christopher really didn't want me to take it, he really doesn't like me working at the mall and also he thinks it's beneath me. But it's ok. It was funny because when I went for the interview, I had already sent her a copy of my resume and she asked me why in the world I wanted this job. Because I was clearly overqualified. I really love the lady I work for. She is another Army wife who is selling kids things. I work Monday through Friday from 10-3. I was very limited to what I could do being that we only have one car. It has worked out very nice. I can still get Chris to work in plenty of time and get to work myself. And I am usually always off before he is. The lady is very pleasant, laid back and lots of fun which makes my job that much more enjoyable. It was also good because she only has the kiosk through the holidays. So I didn't have to worry about trying to find someone who would only use me for 3 months. The job has been very boring. October supposively is a very slow month, which I have definitely experienced. So basically I just sit all day and search the internet. :) Which to most you would think would be the "ideal" job, but for 5 straight hours, my eyes hurt! But we are just waiting for the holiday crowd. And hoping it will get busy.
This is just a random picture of Mayva I took. She was trying to learn how to cook Colombian food. :)
Another random of the Naughty Mayva Jade. She likes to crawl in the bottom of my dirty clothes thing. Well she ran out when I called her but her collar got stuck. She pulled the whole thing over and couldn't go anywhere. She's a MESS!On Saturday, October 3rd we took Mayva to the park. The poor dog has nowhere to run. She is always stuck in our little apartment. So we have a really nice park right up the road that we took her to and threw the ball and let her run around until she wouldn't anymore! :)
Mayva Jade and her father playing ball. Christopher thought that dogs were supposed to come out knowing how to catch a ball. But he quickly learned they have to be taught. He hates it when she doesn't catch it. But she's learning! :)
Being crazy with her daddy!
The hubs and I waiting for the wrestling match to start.
One of the wrestlers. He lost. ha
The other wrestler. SCARY!!!!! This guy scared me!
The match taking place. 
This is after one day I came home from work a mess that I found from Mayva. Before she was potty trained we had to block off the cage and not give her all of it so we put boxes to block off enough space for her. Well she found a shoe box and destroyed the tissue paper in it and the shoes laces. NAUGHTY!!! :) She was dancing around in the picture because she was scared - she knew she was bad. 
This is where you can take a little boat ride around Bricktown.
Entering Bricktown.
Chelino's - the Mexican restaurant where we ate lunch.
So funny story. When we first were walking around - we heard this countdown by this man's voice. It caught us off guard at first. He was counting down...10, 9, 8, 7...and so on. So we kind of stood there waiting for something to happen. We weren't really sure what to expect. Ha. Well then it would start all over. Come to find out it's the walking signs ha. And it counts down letting you know how long you have to cross the street. May not be funny, you might have had to be there, but we don't have things like that in Jacksonville. So we were like what in the world is happening...at first! :) So of course I had to take a picture. It makes me laugh.
Christopher with the UPS buffalo.
He made me get my picture taken too! :)
Haha. Christopher in front of the baseball stadium pretending he is about to get hit.
Walking around Bricktown.
Mayva Jade and her father playing ball. Christopher thought that dogs were supposed to come out knowing how to catch a ball. But he quickly learned they have to be taught. He hates it when she doesn't catch it. But she's learning! :)
Being crazy with her daddy!That night we went to dinner at Chili's with two other couples that their husbands are in Christopher's BOLCIII class. We are always looking for something to do in Lawton and Christopher had seen an ad for wrestling. So, we went to check it out. It was interesting to say the least. But so funny at the same time because the people there were SO serious about it. I have to say that while one of the wrestling matches was going on - I had flashbacks of me and my brother back in the day. TJ used to LOVE wrestling and he would always try the moves on me. They did one move and I told Christopher - my brother used to do that to me all the time. It made me smile. Good times.
The hubs and I waiting for the wrestling match to start.
One of the wrestlers. He lost. ha
The other wrestler. SCARY!!!!! This guy scared me!
The match taking place. 
This is after one day I came home from work a mess that I found from Mayva. Before she was potty trained we had to block off the cage and not give her all of it so we put boxes to block off enough space for her. Well she found a shoe box and destroyed the tissue paper in it and the shoes laces. NAUGHTY!!! :) She was dancing around in the picture because she was scared - she knew she was bad. On Saturday, October 10th we decided we finally just needed to get out of Lawton for a little while. We went to Oklahoma City and went to Bricktown. It was an absolutely gorgeous day - cold - but beautiful! It only takes about an hour and 15 minutes to drive from Lawton. Not bad at all. It was so nice to be in a "bigger" city! :) We immediately had lunch when we got there because it was later about 2 or so. We ate at a Mexican restaurant. It was so yummy! Best Mexican we've had in a while. We walked around Bricktown a few times. There was a Bass Pro Shop and Christopher has not stopped talking about one since we got Mayva, and how he wanted to get her a duck to teach her to duck hunt. He doesn't hunt, and we didn't end up getting her the duck. :) But I did get a North Face jacket! :) We even got military discount on it - which was super nice. Being from Florida I don't have much winter wear. I did accumulate a lot going up to West Point but I don't have a good jacket. So now Christopher and I both have a North Face. It is super windy here and it's getting colder. Plus we will certainly need one in Germany because it is already snowing there. While we were walking around Bricktown I spotted a Marble Slab!!! Even though it was freezing cold outside - we went an ate ice cream anyways. Made me miss home! I got to do a little shopping in some of the shops around Bricktown, which made me super happy. I bought a dress at this store that we do not have in Jacksonville. We ended up eating dinner at a place called Spaghetti House - it was Italian. Super yummy, but we weren't too hungry, I felt like all we did all day was eat! :) We then went to this piano lounge place. And just relaxed. It was such a nice time. And it was just me and Christopher. It was so nice to finally get away and just spend some much needed quality time together away from all his field artillery school. We had a blast.
This is where you can take a little boat ride around Bricktown.
Entering Bricktown.
Chelino's - the Mexican restaurant where we ate lunch.
So funny story. When we first were walking around - we heard this countdown by this man's voice. It caught us off guard at first. He was counting down...10, 9, 8, 7...and so on. So we kind of stood there waiting for something to happen. We weren't really sure what to expect. Ha. Well then it would start all over. Come to find out it's the walking signs ha. And it counts down letting you know how long you have to cross the street. May not be funny, you might have had to be there, but we don't have things like that in Jacksonville. So we were like what in the world is happening...at first! :) So of course I had to take a picture. It makes me laugh.
Christopher with the UPS buffalo.
He made me get my picture taken too! :)
Haha. Christopher in front of the baseball stadium pretending he is about to get hit.
Walking around Bricktown.On Monday, October 12th Christopher had off from work for Columbus Day but I had to work. He actually stayed at home with Mayva. :) I kept texting him to make sure he had taken her out and to make sure he was paying attention to her and wasn't destroying everything. He would just tell me he had no idea where she was! I was super bummed that I didn't have the day off with him! One of the downfalls to me working. But I get off at 3 so I got to spend the rest of the afternoon with him. I had planned on going home to cook us dinner. When I got home and started walking up the stairs, I smelled food. It smelled so wonderful. But I just figured it was from Christopher cooking himself some lunch. But the smell was way too great. Little did I know, he had cooked CHILI for us for dinner!!! And cleaned up the house! All while I was gone! :) It was such a nice surprise. Now Christopher has never cooked a day in his life. I might have mentioned before that he used to not be able to toast a piece of toast. But he helps me every once in a while. And he is really good at it. I was a little nervous, not going to lie, to eat the chili just because it was his first meal he ever cooked alone - much less meat! :) But I was starving when I got home so we ate it because it was ready. It was DELICIOUS! I was SO proud! :) AND he cleaned up the kitchen and all the dishes. Which made it even better. I wondered if he left a mess, he said he thought about it, but he didn't! :) He is such an awesome hubby!!!
Putting the final touches on our chili so we could eat.
His yummy pot of chili.
Uumm...so Mayva destroyed a dollar while I was gone. She's always taking our money. This time she actually took it and ate it.
The final product. My chili!
The cook of this entire meal all by himself! I am so proud!!!
Then he had to do homework. Back to reality. His life...ALL the time!
Mayva got put in her bed because she was being naughty and trying to mess up his homework...surprise! surprise! :)
This is just one afternoon Christopher had come home from work. He and Mayva play rough. We were scared that she was going to be the runt of the litter because she was the only one left. You should see how strong this dog is and how mean she plays for a girl puppy! Her growl sounds like she is going to kill you! These two roll around all over the floor. I love it.
Mayva thinks she is a cat! She likes to walk on the back of the couches. :) I had to get a a picture of it. Because she's not small! :)
Putting the final touches on our chili so we could eat.
His yummy pot of chili.
Uumm...so Mayva destroyed a dollar while I was gone. She's always taking our money. This time she actually took it and ate it.
The final product. My chili!
The cook of this entire meal all by himself! I am so proud!!!Then he had to do homework. Back to reality. His life...ALL the time!
Mayva got put in her bed because she was being naughty and trying to mess up his homework...surprise! surprise! :)
This is just one afternoon Christopher had come home from work. He and Mayva play rough. We were scared that she was going to be the runt of the litter because she was the only one left. You should see how strong this dog is and how mean she plays for a girl puppy! Her growl sounds like she is going to kill you! These two roll around all over the floor. I love it.
Mayva thinks she is a cat! She likes to walk on the back of the couches. :) I had to get a a picture of it. Because she's not small! :)On Sunday, October 18th (the month and day I had waited for since we left Jacksonville) my brother and Mindy and her sister, Lacey came to visit us in Lawton!!!!!!!!!! :) They actually flew into Dallas on Wednesday night and went to see her family and best friend for a few days. They went back to Dallas for the OU/Texas game. And on Sunday drove out to visit us. I was SOOOOO excited. It was SO good to finally see some of my family since JUNE! They came in about lunch time, we took them to a place called Luigi's here that has pizza and gyro's. We came back to our place for a while and they brought out guitar hero (TJ now knows what he wants for Christmas). Christopher had been working on homework since super early that morning, stopped long enough to go to lunch and continued until about 5 or so. He had a JCATS presentation he had to give on Monday. After he was finished we took them on post to see what it looks like, where Christopher goes every day, what housing looks like and of course the beautiful scenery!!! I was so excited that at least a part of my family got to see where we are and what Christopher is doing out here. They thought it was absolutely amazing. We then took them to the Wildlife Refuge. I was a little nervous, because last time we took our friends out there - we saw nothing. We were SO excited because they got to see so much! There were so many buffalo and for the first time for us some baby buffalo, longhorn, we actually saw elk for the first time too! They got tons of pictures - even got out of the car and less than two feet away from these animals. They thought it was so cool! After we finally got done it was pretty late and we were all starving. Lacey, Mindy's sister lives in Oklahoma City. She has a best friend that lives here in Lawton that she comes to see quite often. She actually took us to this Mexican restaurant we haven't tried yet. It was pretty good! We had such a good time. I am so sad that we only had a day. They spent the night with us on Sunday night and didn't have to fly out until late on Monday, but I had to work. So they left Monday morning. I felt bad beacuse we haven't really had anyone stay with us yet. We had nothing for them to sleep on, we had to borrow a blow up mattress from our neighbor, and I had no extra sheets. I did have an extra blanket. Clearly I need to do some shopping for visitors! :) I am so thankful they came to see us. It was a lot out of their way. But I am glad they also got to see our place and our puppy before she is too big. We had an amazing time. I wish the rest of my family could come out here!!!
TJ and Mindy playing guitar hero! :)
More guitar hero. They had so much fun.
Bub with his upside down Longhorn with the Longhorn. They don't like Texas! :)
Mindy too.
Bub and Mindy with the buffalo.
Finally we had people to take pictures of us! :) Christopher and I with the buffalo.
Bub and I with the buffalo.
Bub with the buffalo that was on the side of the road. He was super close and the buffalo was looking at him out of the corner of his eye. Every time someone got out of the car to have their picture made, we were so scared when they were that close that they would charge ha. So Christopher made the "spoiler rule" that we would just take off and to grab on to the spoiler and hold on tight! :) We didn't have to do that, thankfully! :)
TJ and Mindy playing guitar hero! :)
More guitar hero. They had so much fun.
Bub with his upside down Longhorn with the Longhorn. They don't like Texas! :)
Mindy too.Bub and Mindy with the buffalo.
Finally we had people to take pictures of us! :) Christopher and I with the buffalo.
Bub and I with the buffalo.
Bub with the buffalo that was on the side of the road. He was super close and the buffalo was looking at him out of the corner of his eye. Every time someone got out of the car to have their picture made, we were so scared when they were that close that they would charge ha. So Christopher made the "spoiler rule" that we would just take off and to grab on to the spoiler and hold on tight! :) We didn't have to do that, thankfully! :)
Bub, Mindy, Mayva and I trying to take a picture. It's a little blurry, Mayva is too quick! :) So thankful I was able to see them!
On Wednesday, Ocotber 21st Christopher went and finally got his medical screening done for Germany. He had to get a typhoid shot. When I picked him up from work, he didn't look good. He was cold and shivering and just didn't feel well at all. This is him curled up on the couch with his sweats with Mayva Jade. She knew daddy didn't feel well! :( She was trying to cuddle with him and make him feel better. He ended up sleeping until 8 when I woke up him because he had to do his homework! :(
I have a few more things in October, but I will post this for now.
I have a few more things in October, but I will post this for now. All other pictures are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.n.court.carnes
Love you all,
Christopher and Courtney
